Give to the one who asks. This last example is an ordinary, everyday occurrence: Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow – a request for goods or money from a neighbor or a poor person.  From Deuteronomy 15:

⁷ If one of your kinsmen in any community is in need in the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand to him in his need. ⁸ Instead, you shall open your hand to him and freely lend him enough to meet his need. ⁹ Be on your guard lest, entertaining the mean thought that the seventh year, the year of relaxation, is near, you grudge help to your needy kinsman and give him nothing; else he will cry to the LORD against you and you will be held guilty. ¹⁰ When you give to him, give freely and not with ill will; for the LORD, your God, will bless you for this in all your works and undertakings. ¹¹ The needy will never be lacking in the land; that is why I command you to open your hand to your poor and needy kinsman in your country.

Jesus’ injunction reflects the generosity envisioned in Dt 15:7-11 for helping a fellow Israelite in need, but is more open-ended (cf. Luke 6:30) – not limiting the injunction to a fellow Israelite. Luke is more far-reaching: ‘Give (regularly: present imperative) to everyone who asks of you.’ Matthew envisages a specific instance (give is aorist imperative, normally of a single act). Literal application of this verse as a rule of life would be self-defeating: there would soon be a class of saintly paupers, owning nothing, and another of prosperous idlers. But the principle is that the need of others comes before my convenience (cf. Deut. 15:7–11). The point being made is that in the kingdom of heaven self-interest does not rule – not our legal rights, nor our possessions – all give way to the interest of others.

Interim thoughts.  As seen in the commentaries of four exegetes (Boring, Carter, France and Keener) what one understands from this part of the Sermon on the Mount depends upon the accent that one places on the text. Carter clearly presses the perspective of justice’s demands and the means to bring about justice in a world where social, economic and political power are maldistributed. The others accent the role of discipleship of the individual in seeking the righteousness of Christ and show a dependence upon Christ to establish justice. These exegetes seem to say that to turn the other cheek is not to shame the opponent or win him/her over, to cause the enemy to repent. Going the extra mile is not a matter of prudence calculated to keep a low profile when you do not have power and need to “get along.” These sayings express the inherent rule of the kingdom of God and are God’s ultimate way of dealing with humanity exhibited in the life and death of Jesus. They do not necessarily make sense. They are not reasonable in the eyes of the world. They are challenges that ask us whether we are oriented to the God who has redefined power and kingship in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

R.T. France (1989, pp.130-31) nicely comments on Jesus’ teaching:

These verses list four concrete situations in which Jesus’ general teaching on non-retaliation applies…The first (5:39b) seems to picture a personal dispute that leads to an insulting back-hand slap by a right-handed person to the right cheek of another person… The second (5:40) speaks of a legal dispute in which one is ordered to forfeit one’s shirt to supply collateral for a debt or satisfy a claim for damages. The third situation (5:41) envisions an occupying Roman soldier conscripting a Jewish person to carry his equipment (cf. 27:32). In each situation Jesus commands his disciples to go beyond the expected response. Instead of angrily slapping the aggressor back, the disciple is to allow himself to be slapped again on the other cheek. Instead of standing up for his rights with further litigation, the disciple is to give up his coat … as well as his shirt. Instead of resisting occupying military forces, the disciple is to help them by carrying their equipment two miles instead of one. The point of the first three situations is that the disciple is not to be a part of furthering the usual chain of evil action and reaction in this fallen world.

The fourth example (5:42) takes the teaching of Jesus one step further. Not only is a disciple to be non-retaliatory when injured, he or she is to be generous to those who are in need (cf. Luke 6:34–35). Not only must disciples not further evil by retaliation, they must further good in the world by benevolence. This teaching is in keeping with OT law (cf. esp. Deut 15:7–11; also Lev 25:35–55). At his own arrest and trials Jesus exemplified the essence of what is taught here (26:67; 27:11–13, 35; cf. Mark 14:65; John 18:22–23; 19:3; 1 Pet 2:23).

But these four examples should not be taken in a doctrinaire fashion that would limit their intended application. One may never need to physically turn the other cheek, give up one’s coat, or go an extra mile, but one must be willing to unselfishly suffer personal loss with faith that the heavenly Father will meet one’s needs and deal with the injustice in his own time.

Love Extends to the Enemy. The opening phrase, You shall love your neighbor is from Leviticus 19:18, which Jesus quotes in a fuller form at 19:19 and 22:39. The prominence of the commandment to love in Jesus’ teaching, and especially in Matthew’s presentation of it, is well known. Here the question is the extent of its application (as in Luke 10:25–37, where the parable of the Good Samaritan is also introduced as a comment on Lev. 19:18). The neighbor of Leviticus 19:18 was the fellow-Israelite, but a very different attitude was required towards those of a hostile community (Deut. 23:3–6; cf. Ps. 139:21–22), even though a personal enemy was to be treated with consideration (Exod. 23:4–5; 1 Sam. 24:19; Prov. 25:21) and an individual non-Israelite was to be made welcome (Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:19).

There is no command to hate the enemy in the Old Testament, yet there are statements that God “hates all evildoers” (Ps 5:5; cf. 31:6) and statements that imply that others do, and should do, the same (Deut 23:3-7; 30:7; Pss 26:5; 139:21-22). The primary meaning is not aimed at personal vindictiveness or disdain, but at the religious rejection of those who do not belong to God’s people and keep God’s law. The group of insiders to be loved is constituted by the religious community; outsiders who are “hated” are those who do not belong.”‘

The Matthean Jesus makes love of God and neighbor the fundamental command on which all else depends, and makes the command to love enemies specific and concrete – the litmus test if you will. In its absoluteness and concreteness, it is without parallel in Hellenistic culture or Judaism. The command should not be understood only abstractly, “love all people, including even enemies.” In Jesus’ situation it referred par­ticularly to the occupying Roman forces, and thus to national enemies as well as to competing relig­ious groups and personal enemies. For Matthew the focal instance was the concrete situation of the persecuted Matthean community in its time.

But such a concrete point of orientation then moves universally so that love (agape) reigns above all. Jesus bases the command not on a humanitar­ian ideal, a doctrine of human rights, or a strategy or utilitarian purpose (to win the enemy over) but

(a)    only on his authority to set his own command in juxtaposition to the Law (5:43),

(b)   on the nature of God who loves all impartially (5:45), and

(c)    on the promise of eschatological reward (5:46).

The idea of reward is not mere selfishness, but a dimension of Jesus’ fundamental proclama­tion of the present and coming kingdom as the basis for the radical life-style to which he calls his disciples. Thus “that you may be children [huioi] of your heavenly Father ” also represents Mat­thew’s inaugurated eschatology: Your conduct must be appropriate to your status as sons/chil­dren of God, which you already are (6:4, 6; cf. v. 18), and which will be revealed and acknow­ledged by God at the last judgment (cf. 5:9).  And this love will issue in prayer for the persecutors; it is not just a sentimental feeling, but an earnest desire for their good.

So what if you love only as everyone else?  These verses develop the idea of loving one’s enemies by first comparing such love to God’s love for people (5:45) and then by asking two rhetorical questions that call on disciples to practice a higher righteousness than tax collectors and pagans do (5:46–47). A parochial concern is characteristic of the world. If a disciple is to find his recompense, he must not just be on a level with other men; he must do more (cf. v. 20, where the same root perisson is used, and the ultimate development of this more in the perfect of v. 48). Tax collectors and Gentiles are bracketed together again in 18:17. The (Jewish) tax collectors, as an ostracized minority, formed a close-knit group. Jesus’ positive attitude elsewhere to tax collectors (9:9–13; 11:19; 21:31–32) and Gentiles (8:10–11) contrasts with the pejorative use of the terms here and in 18:17; their use as colloquial expressions, readily understood in current Jewish society, for ‘outsiders’ or ‘undesirables’ cannot therefore be pressed into an endorsement of the very type of discrimination which it is the aim of these verses to condemn. Brothers will in context denote primarily fellow-disciples, as generally in Matthew: the love Jesus requires extends outside the ‘in-group’ to its opponents.

Summary. The ‘greater righteousness’ demanded in v. 20 has been illustrated in vv. 21ff., and is now summed up (therefore) in one all-embracing demand. The demand is that disciples (you is emphatic, in contrast with the tax collectors and Gentiles of vv. 46–47 and the scribes and Pharisees of v. 20) must be perfect (teleioi). This is the ‘more’ required in v. 47. Cf. 19:20–21, where again teleios (its only other use in Matthew) indicates God’s requirement which goes beyond legal conformity. (There too Lev. 19:18 is superseded by this more radical demand.) Teleios is wider than moral perfection: it indicates ‘completeness’, ‘wholeness’ (cf. Paul’s use of it for the spiritually ‘mature’ in 1 Cor. 2:6; 14:20; Phil. 3:15), a life totally integrated to the will of God, and thus reflecting his character. It is probably derived here from the lxx of Deuteronomy 18:13, which, with the repeated formula of Leviticus 11:44–45; 19:2; 20:26 (‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’), is echoed in Jesus’ words. The conformity to the character of God, to which Israel was called in their role as God’s special people (see especially Lev. 20:26), is now affirmed as the goal of the disciples of Jesus. It is an ideal set before all disciples, not a special status of those who claim to have achieved ‘sinless perfection’ in this life; neither here nor in 19:20–21 is there a suggestion of a two-level ethic for the ordinary disciple and the ‘perfect’.

Matthew 5:39 offer no resistance: The Greek verb anthistēmi means “set oneself against, oppose, resist” The 14 occurrences in the NT are all middle in meaning (i.e., not causative). The verb frequently refers to human opposition to God, God’s messengers, God’s will, etc. (Acts 13:8; Rom 9:19; 13:2; 2 Tim 3:8; 4:15; cf. Luke 21:15; Acts 6:10), but is also used with reference to evil that one is not to resist here in Mt 5:39); at the same time, it is appropriate to oppose evil absolutely (Jas 4:7; 1 Pet 5:9; cf. also Eph 6:13). Paul uses the verb to describe his behavior toward Peter in Antioch (Gal 2:11: lit. “I opposed him to his face”). one who is evil represents the same ambiguous phrase as in v. 37, but the context here, with the following series of if any one … clauses, suggests that it is right to take it of an individual wrongdoer rather than of ‘evil’ as a principle, still less of ‘the Evil One’. strike…on the right cheek: the back-handed slap is assumed and is based upon what is necessary for a right-handed person to strike another on their right cheek.

Matthew 5:41 mile: the word milion means 1,000 paces, a distance somewhat less than a standard mile.

Matthew 5:43 hate: in biblical parlance does not necessarily imply personal hostility, but may mean “not choose; consider an outsider” (cf. Matt 6:24; Luke 14:26; Rom 9:13)

Matthew 5:46 pray for those who persecute you: Praying for one’s persecutors is a striking demonstration of one’s love for them (cf. Luke 23:34; Acts 7:59–60). This, too, is anticipated in the OT (Gen 20:17–18; Exod 23:4–5; Num 12:13; 21:7; 1 Sam 24:17–19; Job 31:29; Ps 7:3–5; Prov 24:17–18; 25:21–22; Jer 29:7; Jonah 4:10–11).

• G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI;  Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic;  Apollos, 2007) 26-29
• Eugene Boring, The Gospel of Matthew in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994) 193-98
• Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Book, 2000) 150-57
• R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2007) 217-29
• R.T. France, Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 1, ed. Leon Morris  (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989) 130-35
• Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1 of Sacra Pagina, ed. Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991) 82-93
• Daniel J. Harrington, “Matthew” in The Collegeville Bible Commentary, eds. Diane Bergant and Robert J. Karris (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1989) 871
• Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2009) 195-205
• John P. Meier, Matthew, New Testament Message 3 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990) 45-55
• D. Turner and D.L. Bock, Matthew and Mark in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, vol. 11 (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2005) 91-97

Dictionaries. Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990)

• P. Fiebig, angareuō, 1:12
• H. Balz, anthistēmi, 1:99
• W. Rebell, chitōna, 3:468
• W. Radl, himation, 2:187

Scripture. The New American Bible